Apple Strudel

Time for Dessert…..

Today we’ve had a very interesting day, with rain and temperatures down to 16°C (60°F). You know I always welcome rain for two reasons: my car will get a natural wash from the heavens (I hate going to the car wash) and I don’t have to water the lawn. Of late all my neighbours have been watering their lawns, while I have been silently praying for rain. Now I can remove some of those weeds that have been an eyesore for so long. I used to love gardening, until I started blogging. In my opinion, the two, are like day and night, they simply don’t blend. Can you imagine dirt stuck under the long nails you’ve been trying to grow and then having to wash them, thoroughly, before kneading the apple strudel dough for 15 minutes (I use a tiny hand mixer-not too good for dough-kneading).

Two weeks ago, I met a long lost friend and the first question she asked? “when are you posting desserts?,” that reminded me of a lesson on: “living a balanced life”. I never seem to balance anything, until the scale tips to the breaking point. At that point, of course, I have no choice but to change direction, then the boundless cycle begins, again, ouch!

Okay the scale did reach the breaking point and now I can finally share some desserts. I love desserts, as long as I don’t have to count the calories. But can you really eat a proper dessert without counting calories? I want to eat my dessert in full, the way it was meant to be. I don’t want substitutes, so probably, that’s why I shy from desserts? Today we’ll start with an apple strudel. I ate mine with 3 scoops of French vanilla ice cream, I didn’t count the calories and I logged everything in my newly found food diary. The next day? I sort of starved myself, in order to balance. Oh why do we always have to balance? Now, for the recipe…

Please always remember to assemble all ingredients before you start baking!

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl.

Make a well in the centre, add the egg with 4-5 tablespoons of tepid water, two tablespoons oil and ½ teaspoon cider vinegar (optional). Mix to a pliable dough and continue to knead for about 15 minutes until the dough is silky smooth and very elastic. (this takes about 5 minutes in a mixer using the dough hook).

Shape into a round ball then leave in a lightly oiled polythene bag for about 1 hour.

For the filling: peel, core and slice the apples. Mix sugar with cinnamon and nutmeg. Place the apples in a bowl with the flaked almonds, raisins, lemon rind, and the mixed cinnamon sugar. Mix together lightly. (Do this just before rolling the pastry)

Roll the relaxed pastry out as thin as you can on a lightly floured surface with a warmed rolling pin to an oblong 12” x 20” (30cm x 52cm).

Cut into two 12” x 10” (30cm x 26cm) oblongs

place each oblong on parchment/ greaseproof papers. At this point I continued rolling up to about 15” x 13” ( and this could still be rolled further.

Brush edges well with melted butter. Divide the prepared filling between each pastry oblong and arrange as shown.

then carefully roll up each strudel,

tuck each end into the centre and keeping the roll a neat shape, making sure you seal all the edges properly

Lift on to a greased baking sheet or a sheet lined with parchment, with the join underneath

Brush each strudel, liberally, with remaining melted butter. Sprinkle with almonds and bake just above the centre for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. I baked the strudel at 400°F (200°C) for 26 minutes.

Allow to cool slightly before dusting with a little sifted icing sugar.

Serve this dessert hot or cold, with custard, cream or ice cream.

I served mine hot, with French vanilla ice-cream. It was truly delicious and worth all the trouble taken. Sorry I forgot to take a photo of my actual plate of dessert, I remembered after everything was gone!!!

Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre, add the egg with 4-5 tablespoons of tepid water, two tablespoons oil and ½ teaspoon cider vinegar. Mix to a pliable dough and continue to knead for about 15 minutes until the dough is silky smooth and very elastic. (this takes about 5 minutes in a mixer using the dough hook). Shape into a round ball then leave in a lightly oiled polythene bag for about 1 hour.

For the filling: peel, core and slice the apples. Mix sugar with cinnamon and nutmeg. Place the apples in a bowl with the flaked almonds, raisins, lemon rind, and cinnamon sugar. Mix together lightly. (Do this just before rolling the pastry)

Roll the relaxed pastry out as thin as you can on a lightly floured surface with a warmed rolling pin to an oblong 12” x 20” (30cm x 52cm). Cut into two 12” x 10” (30cm x 26cm) oblongs and place each oblong on parchment/ greaseproof papers. At this point I continued rolling up to about 15” x 13” ( and this could still be rolled further. Brush edges well with melted butter.

Divide the prepared filling between each pastry oblong then carefully roll up each strudel, tucking each end into the centre and keeping the roll a neat shape.

Lift on to a greased baking sheet or a sheet lined with parchment, with the join underneath and brush each strudel, liberally, with remaining melted butter. Sprinkle with almonds and bake just above the centre for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Allow to cool slightly before dusting with a little sifted icing sugar. Serve this delicious dessert cut into slices, hot or cold with custard or cream.

**I weigh the flour and butter, I do not use cup measures as the weight of a cup of flour tends to vary based on individual interpretation or publication, (from 125g to 130g to 155g per cup).

Cup measures based on 1 cup = 125g flourso that would be the US cup of 237ml, not the Australian Cup

Points to note:

Please note that oven temperatures are given as a guideline only. You may need to add or reduce the suggested temperature depending on your oven. I baked the strudel at 400°F (200°C) for 26 minutes.

I always weigh ingredients, especially the flour and butter. You can use cup measures, but please note if you scoop flour directly from the bag you will end up with 150-185 g of flour instead of the recommended 125g. I suggest you spoon the flour into the cup, heaping it up over the top, then slide a knife across the top to level off the extra. Be careful not to shake or tap the cup to settledown the flour oryou will have more than you need. You can also sift the flour first then scoop. My best advice: please use a weighing scale

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99 thoughts

I love your blog – so many years I’ve been following it… and I have to write it once again: You are just amazing!
I love the simplicity of your recipes, your wonderful step-by-step-photography (I now surely know all of your bowls and spoons), your how tos and your stories about the weather, your mood or your lawn which once again has to be watered… You are a gem!
Thank you for sharing and many, many greetings from far away Germany.
Yours, Yushka

I am terribly sorry that you left me this beautiful and amazing message but I didn’t respond straight away. Thanks you so much for loving my blog and for all the lovely compliments regarding the recipes. You made my day-the day I read this message and I’ve been reading it over and over, again and smiling. After some time I realized that I only cook the really simple things that I post so I decided I was just going to focus on simple recipes. In Canada the weather is a very important subject because you must always be prepared for it and you must always dress and drive depending on the weather. In the last two weeks the weather has been awesome. I jog 6km every morning and some days it’s brutal, especially when the whole route is icy and full of snow. Thank you very much. Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch. Auf wiedersehen. Thank you for sharing my posts on your blog-i have been receiving some traffic from your site . So very kind of you!!!!
Best Wishes!
Liz

Hey Chad,
It’s nice to hear from you after such a long time. How have you been? I’m so glad my strudel inspired you to to make one with a twist. I can’t wait to hear or see how yours faired on. Please share it once it’s done. I might also borrow some ideas from you for making the next strudel. Thanks so much for being here. i look forward to hearing about your strudel and I hope you enjoy it the way I enjoyed mine!!.

I would love to participate but the notice is too short. I have a backlog of almost 40 posts that I want to clear before end of August and this takes a huge chunk of my time. One day I would love to participate if you give ample notice.
My house smells very nice, we have just had wholemeal apple scones with cinnamon, but am afraid I have started gaining weight in my middle and am not liking it at all!!! Have a very pleasant day!

Sorry about the short notice. This summer has been crazy with most of my time taken up by non-blog related things. Just trying to get back to it. I did mention that it doesn’t have to be a new post. Just looking for recipes that can be part of a festive meal. I am posting on Saturday so if you change your mind or think of one by Friday afternoon, let me know.

I too have started gaining weight. I hear it is the curse of the food blogger. I am trying to loose it and keep blogging 🙂

Okay I shall let you know.
Weight gain is certainly the curse of a food blogger, I hate my middle with a passion. I have to find ways of trimming this weight. Maybe I should become a strict vegan blogger? Enjoy your day!

Apple desserts are always so good. You should try make one, one of these fine days. I’m sure you’ll love it. The other day I made some apple muffins, but am yet to post. I love eating apples, sometimes I wake up to eat an apple and then go back to sleep! I have to grab one now and crunch. Goodness it’s so late (1.38 am). Best wishes and thanks for leaving me many messages!

Hi Ada,
As long as you knead the dough and let it rest for an hour as specified, it will be easy to roll, I promise you. I stopped rolling mine even though I could have rolled and rolled it more. Please try and make it one day, I procrastinated for a long time before I gave it a go, but I’m glad I finally did!! Wish you a wonderful week!!

OMG this looks so heavenly! I did my junior year of college in Austria and went to a heavenly restaurant called Strudel Stube which had about 40 kinds of strudel! While apple is a classic and probably my favorite, they had an awesome chocolate strudel and a meat strudel with tomato sauce. Okay, I am officially drooling now! I may have to try this recipe soon. My attempts at homemade strudel in the past haven’t been super successful….

This was my first attempt and I was happy with the results although I’m sure improvements can be done to enhance the flavour further. I got another recipe that I want to try soon and I hope it will work out. Thanks for visiting and best regards to your family!!!

Wow that looks mouthwatering! I have always wanted to try my hand at making up deserts but I’ve always been leery of the need for precise measuring. I’m a “wing it into the bowl” kind of girl. I am already fantasizing about your recipe but I don’t have any apples. I was thinking of trying something similar with some fresh local peaches and a caramel sauce drizzle I have lying around…

You know what I always say? Give it a go and see how it works. You can never really know the outcome unless you try, so if I were you I would just try it. Maybe it will be so good you could share with me the recipe. I try things all the time, sometimes it work sometimes it doesn’t but at least I’ll know what doesn’t work.
If you really want to make the best, precise measuring is the way to go. I learnt cooking by measuring so I don’t find it a drudge at all. I enjoy the process of measuring and tweaking. So please try it and give me a feedback if you can. I wish you a wonderful week ahead, and thanks so much for visiting me, I really appreciate!!!

Simply sccccrumptious! Its been a long while since I had an apple strudel. I think gardening may help blogging, for example, if you grow your own herbs for recipes. Of course, there’s still the problem of dirty hands… that part got me laughing 😀

I procrastinated over this recipe for years until I finally said enough is enough and when I finally did make it I said to myself “that was easy, why did it take me so long??”
I agree about herbal gardening and cooking. I always wish I could just nip out and grab some fresh herbs and get back to cooking. I admire Gordon Ramsay and his herbal garden, and his dog that sits around, watching.
We wouldn’t eat if someone out there didn’t make their hands dirty? could we?? It’s part of the food chain. Thanks and wish you a lovely week ahead!

Hi and thanks for the compliments.
You do need to rest the dough for one hour so that it becomes elastic and that means you can roll it very thin without tearing it. And you do need to knead it for 15 minutes as well if you’re not using a mixer.
Thanks hope that helps next time??? Wish you a pleasant week ahead!

A picture is worth a thousand words, and your photos sure do justice to the food you are presenting. My mouth is watering. I won’t say drooling….that may make people think I’m aged and losing control! LOL You make it look so easy. I’m not an organized cook or baker, I’m usually fumbling around looking for that cinnamon or other ingredients at the last minute! Great advice Liz about putting it all out before you start. I promise, I will do that next time I bake. This strudel looks so yummy!

Haha you always make my day. I love reading your comments, honestly! It does not only look easy but it’s actually easy too. The secret is to follow instructions and tell yourself you’re a great baker. I used to fumble around, like you before I started blogging but now I have to be organized because I need to take photos. And anyway I love cooking. It is really “my favourite pastime” I feel over the moon when I am making something new and it turns out great. Thanks Sandy and enjoy your concert. I’m sure it will turn out great!!!

It took me some years of gloating over the recipe until I said enough is enough and tried it. I’m so glad I did and I have since seen some even better versions elsewhere that I plan to try as well. Enjoy the week ahead and thanks for visiting me!

I loveee apple strudel, even more with warm custard drizzled all over. Another awesome post Liz! I’ll try to beat my laziness and make this soon, haven’t kneaded for quite some time already, my skills might have been all rusty by now 🙂

This is my kneading time. I handn’t done any kneading since the year began. Was always feeling kinda lazy but now I’m fully psyched and ready to go!
I am so glad there are some lazy people out there, like me. I was beginning to worry but now I know am absolutely normal. Enjoy sharpening your rusty skills, mine have now reached level 5. I’ll stop when I reach level 10. Thanks and enjoy the week ahead!!

Then you’ll be even happier to hear that there are some people lazier than you, like me ^^ I’ll learn from you and drag my back into the kitchen to work on the mountains of bread recipes that I have bookmarked since last year. Will inform you of that glory day (soon) 🙂 Wish you a very lovely week too!

Omg I am terribly happy that there is an even lazier human being than I am. Talk about the mountains of bread recipes, I have a long list, it must be reaching a km long by now, of the recipes I want to try. I’m glad I say I want to try, coz I don’t know when I’ll ever try them. My schedule seems to be so busy, if only there were 26 hours a day, probably my list would be checked off now. Thanks and have a wonderful week. Make sure you dismantle that mountain!

Very lovely recipe…I have Honey Crisp apples growing in my yard right now that I hope the deer and squirrels will share with me so I can make this strudel. Also, you have given some very good tips on handling flour!!!

Thanks so much for your compliments. I feel very honoured. I envy that you have honey crisp apples in your yard. How great. I have nothing growing in my yard perhaps next year I shall grow some herbs?
I hope you are having a great summer? Have a lovely week ahead and thanks so much for being here!

And tastes delicious too.
Thanks so much for visiting me. I’m still dreaming about that “Saffron Rice” I saw on your blog. Persian cooking is really interesting and worth venturing into. Wish you a lovely evening!

Hi,
Whenever I see you I just think of all those lovely fresh bakes that dot your blog. You have a great talent. Thanks so much for visiting me. I feel very honoured and I’m glad you find my strudels amazing. Gives me something to smile about. Have a pleasant day and wish you wonderful week ahead!